Thirteen years later, also on this auspicious day, in the summer of 1947, India cast off the yoke of colonial oppression.

These dates, though a decade apart are bound together in our family, hewn together by the happenstance of fate.

2.

The threads of the struggle for freedom, the hunger for liberation, the thirst for democracy, the ache of sacrifice, are intertwined.

3.

The valiant freedom fighters faced the brutality of the enemy head-on, staring down the barrels of the imperialists with chins held high, relinquishing the comfort of inaction for the battle for those eternally noble ideals – the struggle against oppression, the quest for human dignity, the emancipation of women, the conviction of being a part of a greater cause in the service of humanity.

4.

The struggle for liberation in South Africa and in India left many martyred souls, many more victims of appalling cruelty, the harrowing pain of families’ torn apart, the parents and children ripped from each other, the savagery of torture, the massacres of the innocents, the decades spent in prison, the years spent in exile.

Just a few names of the many more who gave up their youth, cruelly executed by the merciless foe.

4.

The torch bearers of the struggles, are forever etched in our minds, always kept close to our hearts, for these were the giants who inspired countless more to join the just cause for universal human dignity.

It has been said that in Hiroshima that day, and in the weeks and months that followed, the living envied the dead, their skin peeling off as they roamed their city, their home, consumed by the sickening howls of pain from every quarter.

Little Boy exploded as it fell, releasing a heat that burnt people, searing their shadows into walls, preserved till today, a ghastly reminder of that savagery that befell all.

Radiation from the Bomb creeped into flesh, scorching innumerable innocents, as nuclear ash fell all around.

Man had created a weapon of such savagery, such indifferent brutality, a bringer of horrors, grotesque and merciless.

Man had used the weapon, not once, but twice, for three days later Fat Man*** was unleashed on Nagasaki.

I could write on, attempting to describe the indescribable horrors that rained down on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I could write on, about the deformed babies being born, decades after those two days in early August of 1945.

I could write on, about the inhumanity man visited upon fellow human beings.

I could write on, about the stockpiles of nuclear weapons – tens of thousands of bombs – far, far more powerful than those that reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to radioactive ash.

I could write on, about the nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons housed in the silos of those who preach peace, of those who crow on about democracy, of those who let their people starve while testing the means to carry these weapons of hell across oceans.

I could write on, about the hypocrisy, the money spent on machines of destruction, as most humans of this world go hungry each night and day.

I could write on, and on, and on.

But what more can anyone say, as the wailing, the shrieking screams of the victims echo across time,

till today.

_________

* Enola Gay – the plane that carried the Atomic Bomb.

** Little Boy – the code name for the Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

*** Fat Man – the code name for the Atomic Bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945.